Blue Moon
by OveliaGirlHaditRight
Summary: Logan convinces Max to get a new catsuit, figuring the Familiars and public know her look too well. What neither of them realized was that this outfit was a trap from the Breeding Cult, meant to get rid of Max's immunity to the comet. And when they storm White's base, this becomes apparent when the suit is triggered and Max nearly dies. But then Logan comes and absorbs the effects.


**Author's Note: This plot is... weird. I'm not even going to deny it. But I had another account where I wrote LoMax fanfiction, but have deleted it. And even though you don't see it on this account, I feel like I exhausted every LoMax idea I could think of on that one. Which means I sort of have to think out of the box now to get inspired for them. And I want to be inspired for them. But despite the weirdness, I hope you'll all find a pretty good tragic piece here.**

**Speaking of which... I didn't want to kill Logan (and yes, this fic kills Logan. Warning you now), because I love love love him and he and Max are the OTP to rule all OTPs. But this is what the muse hit me with. -shrugs- I blame it on me just watching Wesley's death in Illyria's arms on Angel the Series.**

**Anyway, happy Dark Angel year! Which was really why I wanted to finally post something for Lomax/the fandom again!**

"I don't wanna hear it, Alec. I don't wanna hear how it was apparently always wrong for me to love Logan… Because he was just looking out for _me _again, in trying to find a way for me to stay off the Breeding Cult's radar—…and for me to stay away from _him_, if that's what I really wanted—and he died for it! So save your 'I told you sos!'"

Max wasn't sure if she was actually being fair with this. Because maybe in having lost Rachel, Alec _would _understand what she was going through and know _not_to go there. When she'd told him about Ben, he'd been silent… Hadn't he?

Well, even if that was true, Max was too livid to give him the benefit of the doubt right now—or to give him with anything for that matter. She wished they weren't friends, and that they'd never met. Because maybe if they hadn't, none of this would have ever happened.

All Max wanted to do was curl up on Logan's couch and die herself. And she did do the former.

**Hours Earlier**

"So… Why do you think I need a blue catsuit again?" Max asked, as she slid into said outfit in Logan's bathroom: somewhat remining her of the night she met Mia. But Max refused to think on that now, since she and Logan had actually been good then—all things considered—and now they weren't.

Logan sighed—Max could hear this with her cat-like ears—before he rolled closer to the door in his wheelchair, presumably so she could hear him even better.

"Because, Max… The Familiars know too much about you now. And what you look like. The public, too, for that matter. This way, you can hopefully change your look enough that people won't necessarily notice you on missions. I also bet White and his crew think you'd be too arrogant to alter your suit at all. So they probably won't even think it's you in this blue suit for a long time."

There were a lot of holes in this logic, Max knew. But she wasn't willing to argue with Logan about it today: not when he was being nice and trying to do something to protect her.

But Max wondered if that was all it was. She got the sense, that—despite everything—he preferred the woman she'd been a year ago. And that by even moreso taking her away from that image, he'd be more okay with their breakup.

And if that was the case, Max wanted to kill him… It wasn't his fault, of course. He still had no idea that she'd lied about wanting it to be over and being with Alec. But there was a selfish part of Max that had to know how he'd ever believed any of those things from her.

But none of this mattered right now, her inner-soldier chastised her. Breaking into White's new facility was what was on the agenda… And keeping Logan far, far away from her as she did so.

But still… as Max came out of the bathroom and gave Logan a look, she found she couldn't help poking fun at him like she'd used to.

"Next you'll say that you expect me to wear red, white, and blue?"

Past Logan would have responded to that negatively, Max knew, in thinking that she was mocking his patriotism and desire to return America to its former glory… whatever that was. But the Logan who had been more chill this year than he had any right to be, just raised an eyebrow and asked, "What?"

Max laughed… and instantly hated herself for it, as she fell back into the bad routine of sitting on his computer desk while he typed away. "Nothing. You can mostly forget about it, Logan… It's just that one of the few times I managed to go to school as a kid, we got quizzed about police officers. And one of the questions was if they wore red, white, and blue or not… for some reason. Wearing blue just makes me think of that now. Like, social justice warriors should wear some of our flag or somethin'."

And while Logan didn't quite chortle at this himself, he did smile at her as he looked at her the way he had when she'd first told him about OC and Diamond at Crash. "Becoming my field commander more and more, I see."

Really, Max should have seen Logan bringing back that old joke from a mile away… but she hadn't. And she was glad that she hadn't, so she could again feel the kind of warmth she'd been craving ever since she left Hannah's house.

"…Anyway, Logan… What can you tell me about this place that's trying to manufacture the comet?" Max asked, once again reminding herself to get back to business. The fates of Logan, OC, Sketchy, Kendra, Herbal, Bling, and even Normal—God help her—depended on it.

And for that reason, Max figured there was a good chance she was going to die on this quest: for all that "a life for a life", and "the universe needs to stay in balance" mentality. And since those muscle brutes wanted a world to themselves and were willing to die for it. But Max still wanted to be alive and kicking, damn it! There was still so much she wanted to do with her home girl, Joshua, her friends…even Alec, the transgenics, and Logan. Most of all Logan.

Logan's lips formed into a thin line at her question, and Max could tell he was just as concerned as she was—but she tried not to let it show: deciding to adopt Zack's sense of phony sentimentality, for just a moment—and it told her that as much as he'd been talking with certainty earlier, about how she would be working for Eyes Only again after this… he wasn't so sure.

"…What's there to tell? It's an abandoned airstrip again. And the articles they're using to try and manufacture the meteor are nasty. Some of these items were used to try and destroy the world before—via water, of all things—and I really wish you didn't have to be around them. Bring Alec, if you have to. Joshua too, maybe… and whoever else. You guys should probably enter through a weak spot in the roof, land on the scaffolding and jump down to the operation's center… There will be a few Familiar guards there I'm sure, but hopefully you can take them. Then destroy everything and get the hell out of there."

Max didn't have to be told twice. She nodded once, taking it all in that fast, and walked out on the man she loved once again.

But somehow, Max found herself stopping at the threshold this time and turning around. She didn't really know why she was saying this now, but she was speaking the words: "Not kissing you the night we took down Manticore was the biggest mistake of my life."

And then she was riding away from Fogle Towers on her Ninja: Logan's gasp of breath at her news still greatly on her mind, as she headed the way of his savior. The way of Joshua.

…

Everything went to Hell in record time once the transgenics got to their enemies' lair: Max, Alec, and Joshua had barely made it down from the ceiling before the water of the device had somehow sprung free and been drawn to Max. And at once, it had her seizing in a way she never had before and made her completely useless.

She tried to fight on—and to ignore the pain and the fear—in focusing on the sort of grim determination Jondy had had during their live ordinance drills from back in the day, but it was mostly to no avail. Joshua and Alec ended up kicking a lot of ass for Max… but all the ass kicking was on normal guards, not Snake Cult. Which told Max that this was a setup from the get-go, but then them outing their location so easily couldn't have been anything else.

Ames White—the only bastard they were looking for who actually was here—just laughed and scurried away, before any of the three of them could catch him. No doubt he thought she was dead and that they'd won: since no one had extracted her blood yet, and nothing could pass on that cure for the real meteor now.

And wasn't it her end? Even though Max wanted to punch the sky and say "no", she was starting to doubt that it wasn't…

And that was why Alec—via Joshua's command—called Logan over, so he could come say goodbye to her… Her brothers told Max that they were too afraid to try and move her, in case they made her suffer anymore or so that didn't kill her if leaving her untouched for a moment meant she would have been fine.

When Logan got there, that was when the strangest and worst thing of all happened.

If Max had thought anything would kill Logan, that was from some sort of allergic reaction… it would have been through the Virus. Of course…

Not through his sucking out whatever was in her new outfit into himself.

If Max wouldn't have been dying_herself_this instance—while holding Logan in her arms, and not even caring about the damned Virus because now this illness had somehow been passed to him and he needed to know she loved him—she might have ribbed him, for the fact that it had been _his_idea for her to get these clothes…

But Max wouldn't blame Logan for his own death—she never would—and this ensemble would have possibly helped her in two ways, if things had been different, but that didn't matter now.

Right now? The catsuit she was wearing was disappearing from Max more and more, and leaving her in some sort of red outfit as what was rest of the blue (that was becoming less and less) seemed to rest against Logan in Max's eyes

One of the Familiars had gotten the idiotic notion, that if they couldn't beat her then to join her, Max was realizing now: which was how they'd made this… hoping Max would buy the new uniform—and rather foolishly, she had—and that when she'd put it on, it would render her no longer immune to the comet and cripple her? Surely in looking at her genetic code, and the remains of the last time this harbinger had been on the Earth, they had finally figured out what made her immune to it… and how to change that. They'd just needed one chance to infect her, and they'd found it.

…But they hadn't been counting on the fact that someone who _couldn't_be healed by her immunity would be right by her side, and touch her, and negate it: since the immunity negater thought that if this person _couldn't _be saved—and they couldn't be—it had already done its job.

The furious part of Max—who hated that the love of her life was dying—wanted to despise him for this: that even in his last moments, Logan was still somehow being too big a person and leaving her behind… almost choosing the world over her. Again. But she knew that was ridiculous and shoved the idea down.

Logan hadn't consciously decided this, after all, and in his last moments he didn't need to hear these kinds of thoughts.

No.

Max just focused her attention on kissing every available piece of skin on him that she could find—something that she should have done a long time ago—as she held Logan's hand.

And she would have even been content to die with him—and maybe she still would—if she didn't already hear Alec begging her to leave since the police were here, and the anti-transgenic cry was already loud enough… And if she knew Logan wouldn't come back and haunt her, if she didn't get away now so she could save everyone.

"Logan… I love you," Max said, with a tingle tear that landed on his cheek:

It reminded her of the one she'd cried at Bennett and Marianne's wedding, that Logan had seen… how she should have married him even back then! And Max chose to believe that his red face right now wasn't from the sickness, but in blushing in thinking the exact same thing.

"Don't ever doubt that for a minute… wherever you go, though I'm sure it's Heaven. I- God, I never thought I'd say these words. It's so embarrassing and cliché, but… I love you more than I thought it possible to love anything. And you're the one who showed me how to love… I only pushed you away this last year because I was afraid of losing you. And I can't believe it's happening now!"

Logan squeezed Max's hand here with a surprising strength. And even that took her aback, since she knew he didn't have much of it left… as he was now turning purple. If only she knew what was even happening to him!

"I love you, too, Max," Logan whispered, as tears streamed down his own face… that broke Max's heart into a million pieces to see.

But at the same time… at least it meant he was taking this seriously. And he wouldn't get to the Pearly Gates, knocking on God's door, and only then stop to realize all he'd selflessly given up.

"I always have. Always will. And I'm sorry—But I'll wait for you."

And it was at this point that Max began openly sobbing like she had with Ben (because hadn't the "I'm sorry" part been the exact words she'd said to Logan as she died? But unlike what had happened with her, she knew he wouldn't come back). Logan reached out a hand to put on her face, but didn't quite make it as he winced in pain.

"Little Fella, we need to go now!" Even Joshua was urging Max at this point, as he tried to pull her along—was Alec doing so too?—even as he stopped for a moment, stammered a few words, and let out a sad and lonely howl.

"…Max, I'm sorry. I really am. I liked the guy too, but I see White coming back now with a _red _version of his water thing. And if that's the _rea_l comet they've manufactured, we've got to get plans to share your blood STAT, and-"

But Max paid the two of them no mind—fighting them both and breaking away just once, like she needed to.

"…Logan, if you—the great and powerful Eyes Only—are going to Heaven, then I don't know how it will ever take me… But if I've ever believed in anything, it's you. So I'll have faith in you and wait for the moment we can be together again."

And like she'd been wanting to do for _so_long—she leaned down and kissed his lips—enjoying it much more than she should have, since they'd been denied it for so long.

But the moment they'd come alive in this way, for the first time in a long time—perhaps even moreso than they ever had been before. And why did Max have visions of dancing behind her eyelids?—was exactly when life left Logan's body.

And then all Max was aware of, was numbness.

…

The next thing Max knew after she slept—had she slept? When was the last time she'd ever done that?—was her laying around in Logan's apartment like she owned the place, and really… she should have. God, why hadn't she married him again?!—and Alec trying to reason with her… about something. But the subconscious part of her mind had blocked it from there, that was for sure.

That was when the conscious part of her mind snapped at Alec, and Max found herself heading back to Logan's couch: the only place where comfortableness and truths lied.

And then Alec's words in her ears from far away: "…I wouldn't have said any of those things, Max."

Then after Alec went away, Max heard the closing of the door to an Aztec and she cried.


End file.
